This week’s HW+ member spotlight features Austin Zaback, CEO & founder at Zaback Group and One Roof Real Estate.
HW Media: What is your current favorite HW+ article and why?
Austin Zaback: My favorite article on HW+ is titled, “RealTrends 500: Two firms saw quadruple digit growth over last 5 years” by Tracey Velt. I loved reading about the growth that eXp Realty has had from 2017-2021 and the exposure they’re getting because of it. I’m really proud to be with this company and I can’t wait to see what these stats look like in 5 years!
HW Media: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Austin Zaback: “How you do anything is how you do everything!” It means, commit to being all into everything you do. This goes from making your bed each morning to following up with your clients. Do everything with excellence.
HW Media: What has been your biggest learning opportunity?
Austin Zaback: For me, it’s literally all of the failures I’ve had throughout the years. I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 8 years old, running a pool cleaning business, believe it or not. Now, I’m on to my 12th business, and along the way, I’ve failed more than I’ve succeeded.
The biggest opportunity I take from those failures is learning from them, making pivots to move towards success. And, while some of my pivots haven’t worked, I again learned from the failures to pivot again to find the path to success.
What helps me move through these pivots is my daily routine — I am constantly trying to learn new things, consume more information, become a better leader etc. to help me succeed vs. fail. It’s not easy but maintaining a positive spirit throughout the ups and downs is key. Because of this approach, I get 1% better everyday, which allows me to have success.
HW Media: What keeps you up at night and why?
Austin Zaback: Something that I’ve been struggling with is the fact that hedge funds and foreign investors are buying up as much single family real estate as possible. Last year, investors bought nearly one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas, the most in at least two decades.
Their goal is to control 10% of all single family homes in America. It has definitely been an adjustment to see families being outbid but there have already been some changes and I’m interested to see how that progresses.
HW Media: What’s one thing that people aren’t paying attention to that you think they should be paying attention to?
Austin Zaback: eXp Realty. There are so many things that set this brokerage apart from other brokerages — from the collaboration aspect and the fact that agents are shareholders to the metaverse Glenn Sanford created (you can fish with an agent in Canada and talk about real estate), the healthcare/benefits they provide, the fact that they are in over 19 countries, and that it’s one of the fastest growing brokerages with over 80k agents nationwide and so much broker support!!
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